Aibu in thinking that sexual preference is not shallow

[Randomusername01]

Not a taat (or maybe about lots of threads over the years). Having a sexual preference is not shallow, be it for blonde/brunette/tall/short/vagina/penis/intellect/humour/black/white/asian etc. What turns you on turns you on sadly I feel I need to qualify this by saying children and animals are obviously not included before I get jumped on by the what about brigade. Non animate objects are but I'll secretly judge you a fucking weirdo🤣. I'm not offended or think it's shallow that as a fairly flat chested sombreish average Asian woman that I don't tick the boxes for people who fancy say Pamela Anderson or rachel Riley or Chris hemsworth. If they said they'd never date me then there is no hard feelings. It doesn't make them shallow.

I agree with you. There are certain things that I simply don't find attractive. End of. That doesn't mean I "hate" them or think poorly of them, I just don't find them sexually appealing. Having preferences does not make you shallow, FGS.

I cant say ive seen anyone argue otherwise

Also never seen anyone say different.

Of course personal sexual preference is private and up to the individial but it is shallow in the sense its about looks. And it does become shallow when it becomes a cultural thing to dismiss certain people as unattractive based on certain aspects. So one person not fancying gingers or shortys fine but when it becomes a bit of a pop culture "ewww i would never shag a ginge and nor would anyone i know" it becomes horrid. The short men threads were horrid because you are free to say you dont find people attractive for what ever reason but them threads are pointless. It just attracts odd people who want to jump in to say how they could never possibly date someone with this attribute no matter what. Weird.

I think it’s shallow to be “profound” about something like sexual preferences. Very faux liberal.

I think having a private preference is fine.

Trying to impose that as some sort of cultural standard or policy isn't. And actually that's more than shallow - it's quite harmful. That's where we see dodgy gender stereotypes for example.

Sexual attraction is not an equal opportunities thing.

I wish someone would get that through to incels.

Yep, I'm in with this. People get horny for what they get horny for. There is of course a huge cultural influence, but there's a lot of hardwired stuff in the brain for what makes you sploosh/stiff.

And it changes over your life too (and not just in the 'rut with anything with the appropriate outy/inny bits" from adolescence!), I know my preferences have moved over time. Fortunately DP still satisfies them after 20 years :)

I have seen so many people claim its "racist" if you're not attracted to a specific race, yet its never sexist to say you're straight, or ageist to only like younger/older partners, or any other kind of discrimination. It's totally acceptable to only like one hair colour, one eye colour, only like taller/shorter, or a specific body type like fat/skinny/athletic build.
You can have literally ANY other physical preference/dislike, freckles, glasses, big nose, bald, but if its skin colour/ethnic specific features related you're so often "disgusting".

Sexual attraction often disregards your preferences though.
I prefer talk,dark ,handsome men,had never even dated a blond man until I met my(now ex)husband.
I'd say my preference was for men since to date that's where my sexual preferences have been.However should I be attracted by a woman and she to me then I would see where that would lead but would not
the chance of live or dismisss it as this has not been my preference to date.
It is now shallow but more complicated and I don't feel offended because I am not regarded as worthy of notice by many because of my age.

I think the issue is more that it's still seen as OK to dismiss people as potential partners on the ground that they are 'unattractive' when that means they are not white/thin/young/able-bodied. Whether or not your personal tastes run wholly along the most mainstream lines doesn't matter very much as long as, when you refuse to date or have sex with someone, you're not blatant about it being due to their physical appearance.

It's also not unreasonable to be a bit unimpressed with someone who is very noisy about how 'natural' their preference for a certain (either the standard young-white-thin or a specific ethnic group that they don't belong to themselves) physical appearance is, when they themselves are a long way from the mainstream ideal of attractiveness.

Also, there is a fairly substantial difference between 'I won't date anyone who uses cocaine' and 'I won't date anyone with freckles'.

What's shallow is to pretend you have preferences you don't have because it is fashionable.

There seem to be a lot of men who claim to be into thin women when they actually prefer chubby women, going as far as them having a secret girlfriend who is attractive to them, and a trophy wife who look like the official "perfect woman".

Agree
Contrary to PP I've seen plenty of people who admit this ripped to shreds: the husbands who admit that the wife they married is no longer attractive to them. Granted some leeway should be give but I don't see why a man who married a size 8 woman is expected to find her attractive at size 18.
Men who put on weight are far more vilified.
This place has a long way to go to achieve equality.

yet its never sexist to say you're straight

No, but it's transphobic to only be attracted to people with vaginas.

I'm surprised you haven't heard.

Flat out disagree, Reanimated. Someone who I don't fancy isn't going to make me happy in a sexual relationship, simple as.

Whether that don't fancy is because of behaviour or physical characteristic makes no nevermind. If I don't fancy them I'm not going to jump into bed with them on a long term basis. I'm not going to pretend I get turned on to fulfill some dream of equality.

Also, no one cares about anyone else's generalized voicing of their prejudices. You won't date people with big feet? How many people with big feet have actually asked you for a date in the first place?
At the risk of unleashing a tidal wave of ragepissing heteronormativity, it's a bit dim and shallow to insist you wouldn't have any kind of sexual/romantic relationship with someone of the 'wrong' gender for you. Because you might meet such a someone and be hugely charmed and delighted by this person to the extent that you find yourself wanting to shag them. And, if you haven't got yourself all revved up about other people's insistence that only certain types of human being are desirable, you and the object of your interest may well have a whole lot of fun together.

Men who put on weight are far more vilified.

That might be to do with the fact that men don't get pregnant, so if the man gets fat, the woman isn't directly involved in causing it.

Just a theory.

Thing is someone's physical appearance or physical ability can massively impact on a relationship

If you genuinely can have a relationship without whatever it is affecting you negatively or resentment if it does then that's lovely

I think it's daft to pretend though for the sake of being seen as a lovely person

I couldn't date an amputee I don't think... it's possible I could as I've never found myself fancying one or in a relationship with one, and I don't think badly of amputees or anything

I just know I would find it very hard to see past the extra stress that may have on a relationship by dating someone physically disabled in picking a potential partner

I'd love to say I could handle it, but I don't actually think I could and people deserve someone who CAN not someone who wants to show how virtuous they are by agreeing to date someone

Having a preference for a certain physical type is one thing e.g. 'I prefer taller men'. But it's a bit shallow (IMO) to say something like 'I would never consider dating a man shorter than 5 foot 11'.

I mean if a man came on here and said he would only consider dating a woman who was blonde/had D cup + boobs/was a size 8 or smaller, would you not think he was a little bit shallow?

Because you might meet such a someone and be hugely charmed and delighted by this person to the extent that you find yourself wanting to shag them.

I am charmed and delighted by all my close female friends.

Still waiting for the desire to have sex with them. I certainly wouldn't mind, seeing as I can't find a decent man and almost all my charming, witty, beautiful female friends have the same problem.

I have a niggling suspicion that my heterosexuality isn't curable after all.

But rest assured, I still hope.

My Kinsey scale has tipped from 60% hetero at 18 to about 90% now - which I find quite interesting.

Your conscious preferences don't actually have any real bearing in my opinion. You fancy who you do and you won't know you will until you suddenly do!

If someone asked me I'd say I like dark hair and eyes and yet Iv had three partners who were ginger and one who was bald none of whom fit with my conscious preferences but I obviously liked them or I wouldn't have gone out (or slept) with them.

Saying that my current partner of 16 years who is I hope the person il be with forever and still fancy the pants of is dark haired and eyed so I might be talking shite!

I hear you to a large degree but I also think a lot of our preferences are shaped by the media we're exposed to (which can be illustrated by how certain physical appearances have come into, or gone out of, fashion throughout the course of history).

For example, in Western media, the archetypal romantic leads in movie or television are almost always white, and I think that goes some way to shaping some people's preferences for white partners. I don't think that makes the person who develops those preferences 'a racist', but I think it's worth pondering if racism in the media and popular culture has influenced those preferences.

I do think saying "I don't find people of [insert race here] attractive" indicates an internalised racism, solely because not everyone of any race looks alike, there are huge varieties in facial features, skin tone, etc. so to make a blanket statement like that rubs me the wrong way.